By the reckoning of the old Imperial Calendar instituted by the Crimson Empire before it splintered and was annihilated by the Dominion of the New Order, the Creator fell in Its great battle with Muolih, the Spreading Darkness, in the year -10,782. That calendar was later replaced by the Epoch of the Creator reckoning (EC) for most of the former Imperial provinces, to comemorate the great religious awakening that came with the founding of the Sepulcher of the Creator.

Tales and histories, as well as surviving artifacts like the Purposeful Blade of Pexate, indicate that in the old days the forces of magic were much more powerful than they later became. Magicians, cantrips, magical artifacts…they are all well-attested for hundreds if not thousands of years. But no one can deny that magicks are rare and valuable in the latter days, and a careful study of history seems to show a gradual weakening, a slow petering out, of magic across the world since the great struggle between the Creator and Muolih.

This lost Age of Magic or Age of Wonders is held to have come to a close with the founding of the Sepulcher, which began to keep exhaustive records on magic and magic-users. While artifacts–like the aforementioned Purposeful Blade–where made after that point, no one has been able to deny that magic has slowly been disappearing from the world.

Many theories have been proposed for this. Chief among them is that the Creator was the font of all magicks and Its death resulted in the power slowly draining from the world as It dreamed in the process of ultimate Reconstitution. When the Creator rises again, renewed and dreaming no longer, the theory states, magic will be restored to the world. Another theory, popular in some circles of the Sepulcher, holds that magic sprang from Muolih, the Spreading Darkness, and that its disappearance is a good thing.

More prosaic suggestions have been put forth. Magic-bearing ores deep in the earth being depleted by heavy use are a popular one, as is the notion that sapients consume magic in the ambient environment and the population explosion since antiquity has left little to work with. Finally, some deniers insist that magic never existed in the first place outside of myth and that all the artifacts exhibiting magickal properties have rational explanations.

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